Tyrone to launch an investigation after a weekend of violence
TYRONE GAA has condemned the violent scenes and indiscipline that took place in Club Championship matches in the county over the weekend and promised to deal with the incidents in an “urgent manner”.
Sean Cavanagh was left concussed and with a broken nose and facial bruising after a collision on Saturday during Moy’s match with Edendork.
Some 27 cards were issued, 20 yellow, six red and one black, in a fractious affair but the incident that left Cavanagh hospitalised warranted no penalty.
The night before an intermediate match between Stewartstown and Strabane flared up when several players, substitutes and even some of the crowd spilled in over the sideline in Omagh as a fracas erupted.
A number of players were red carded.
Tyrone GAA did not specifically mention any game or indeed the Cavanagh incident but underlined that their disciplinary arm would be examining the referees’ reports and video footage to determine what sanctions, if any, should apply.
“We would wish to condemn all of the ugly scenes of unwarranted violence. We wish also to extend good wishes to all players who incurred injuries — whether accidentally or otherwise,” their statement read.
Speaking on Today FM’s ‘Last Word’ last night, former Tyrone captain and Belfast Telegraph columnist Peter Canavan said the views from the people he spoke to who witnessed the Cavanagh incident were divided on whether it was intentional or not.
Cavanagh’s face is understood to have come in contact with the knee of an opposing player.
Canavan also reported that the referee was 10 metres away from the incident and was one of the best in the county.
He defended his county’s reputation, suggesting there is an “agenda” against them.
“I do believe that Tyrone are on the receiving end whenever there is negativity attached to Gaelic games. It appears to be pointed up in this direction pretty quickly,” he said.
But he also added that the Tyrone county board had to act after the incidents.
“If they view the video of the incident and they find that the incident was deliberate, they have to come down hard,” he said.
“The incident at the game on Friday night, the perpetrators that came onto the pitch, they have to come down hard and impose heavy suspensions but I don’t think that it’s a fair reflection of what is going on here in Tyrone.”
Meanwhile, Dublin’s back-toback All-Ireland-winning manager Mick Bohan could be a target for the Roscommon county board in the coming days as they seek to replace Kevin McStay.
Bohan has led the Dublin la- dies to their last two All-Ireland titles and has considerable experience with Dublin during the first two years of Jim Gavin’s tenure as a skills coach before coaching Clare, alongside manager Colm Collins, to the 2016 All-Ireland quarter-final.
The temptation to deliver three-in-a-row with Dublin ladies will be huge for Bohan but so too could be the lure of returning to the men’s game and a Division One side in 2019.
Yesterday, however, Bohan’s sole focus was on the latest success for his Dublin team against Cork on Sunday, and he said the ladies’ game needed a free-flowing spectacle in the All-Ireland final after the stop-start All-Ireland camogie final the previous weekend.